n those who by some strange chance hit on the same divinity
did not hit on the same edition of that divinity. An English merchant
vowed a heap of gold to our lady of Walsingham. But a Genoese merchant
vowed a silver collar of four pounds to our lady of Loretto; and a
Tuscan noble promised ten pounds of wax lights to our lady of Ravenna;
and with a similar rage for diversity they pledged themselves, not on
the true Cross, but on the true Cross in this, that, or the other modern
city.

Suddenly a more powerful gust than usual catching the sail at a
disadvantage, the rotten shrouds gave way, and the sail was torn out
with a loud crack, and went down the wind smaller and smaller, blacker
and blacker, and fluttered into the sea, half a mile off, like a sheet
of paper, and ere the helmsman could put the ship's head before the
wind, a wave caught her on the quarter and drenched the poor wretches to
the bone, and gave them a foretaste of chill death. Then one vowed aloud
to turn Carthusian monk, if St. Thomas would save him. Another would
go a pilgrim to Compostella, bareheaded, barefooted, with nothing but
a coat of mail on his naked skin, if St. James would save him. Others
invoked Thomas, Dominic, Denys, and above all, Catherine of Sienna.

Two petty Neapolitan traders stood shivering.

One shouted at the top of his voice, "I vow to St. Christopher at Paris
a waxen image of his own weight, if I win safe to land."

On this the other nudged him, and said, "Brother, brother, take heed
what you vow. Why, if you sell all you have in the world by public
auction, 'twill not buy his weight in wax."

"Hold your tongue, you fool," said the vociferator. Then in a whisper:

"Think ye I am in earnest? Let me but win safe to land, I'll not give
him a rush dip."

Others lay flat and prayed to the sea.

"Oh, most merciful sea! oh, sea most generous! oh! bountiful sea! oh,
beautiful sea! be gentle, be kind, preserve us in this hour of peril."

And others wailed and moaned in mere animal terror each time the
ill-fated ship rolled or pitched more terribly than usual; and she was
now a mere plaything in the arms of the tremendous waves.

A Roman woman of the humbler class sat with her child at her half-bared
breast, silent amid that wailing throng: her cheek ashy pale; her eye
calm; and her lips moved at times in silent prayer, but she neither
wept, nor lamented, nor bargained with the gods. Whenever the ship
seemed really gone under